Aquacide Blog — pond water solutions

Hot weather prompted the DNR to warn lake goers about the potential dangers of blue-green algae. While it is not uncommon to see algae blooms in the lake area in late summer, recent hot weather has prompted a warning.  Blue-green algae tends to show up in small, shallow, mucky ponds.  It looks exactly like its name; “blue-green” scum that resembles pea soup or spilled paint on the water surface.  It also has a strong, unpleasant, swampy odor.  It can erupt suddenly and be deadly. Ninety-nine percent of green algae are harmless; a nuisance and ugly, but harmless and not ALL...

THAD COOK HAD BEEN WORKING as a biologist on the Illinois River, a few hours south of Chicago, for nearly a decade when his boat began to fall apart. The depth finder busted first, followed by the radio, the generator, and finally the fuel tank. He wondered if this was related to the stories he’d been hearing from downriver. Weird tales of boats with no drivers, spinning wildly in the water. Men hauled ashore with lacerations. Anglers covered in blood. Then it hit him: a 25-pounder, right in the gut. “It was like a cannonball,” he says. A few weeks...